


Its Made Its Home Inside

by Saoirse_Laochra



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Dehumanization, F/M, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Mentions of Torture (might get more graphic if I turn it into a multi-chapter), Team as Family, possible one-shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saoirse_Laochra/pseuds/Saoirse_Laochra
Summary: *Currently a one-shot, that I might add more to if people are interested*They call me a monster. And honestly… I can’t really argue the point.I’m most definitely a monster. Loyal to no cause. Inflicting pain, and death wherever I go. Lying and betraying those around me. Hurting those who get too close.I would like to say that it’s not by choice. That I don’t have a choice. But… I’m not entirely sure that’s true.But I can’t be sure it isn’t true either.





	Its Made Its Home Inside

**Author's Note:**

> So, I recently started rewatching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after I stopped at the end of season 1, and I have to say I hate what they did to Ward, and all the missed opportunities they had with his characters, as much as I did the first time I watched it. There was just so much potential to explore, so much they could have done.
> 
> For now, this is a one-shot introspective piece. If people like it, I might continue it on, through Ward's struggling to find how he fits in the team, feelings for Skye, and having people who care.
> 
> Also, this is supposed to be sort of... cluttered. The pieces aren't meant to fit perfectly. I figured that this would have been shortly after Ward was put into the basement holding cell, and his thoughts are still a bit... disjointed. Not linear.

They call me a monster. And honestly… I can’t really argue the point.

I’m most definitely a monster. Loyal to no cause. Inflicting pain, and death wherever I go. Lying and betraying those around me. Hurting those who get too close.

I would like to say that it’s not by choice. That I don’t have a choice. But… I’m not entirely sure that’s true.

But I can’t be sure it isn’t true either.

I look back, and it seems like maybe… maybe whatever ‘ _greater being_ ’ is out there meant for this to be this way. I’m not saying that to be self-pitying, or like I’m a victim, or like I didn’t screw up along the line.

But one of the things I learned in the mandatory psych classes -over two hundred hours for field Specialists -is that there are certain things that create monsters. Despite the new popularity of the idea in Hollywood movies, bad people don’t just _pop_ into existence that way. While the factors are numerous, the point remains that monsters are _made_. Some, over a lifetime, others, a moment.

Looking at it objectively (and I can _look_ at it objectively, even if I can’t _act_ on it objectively), I know that between my upbringing, Garrett’s training, and psychological warfare, along with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s specialist training -which is easily a definition of dehumanization -I was pretty much screwed from the get go. ‘Conditioning’ is what they call it. A form of brainwashing in its own right.

And I’m not saying all this to excuse what I’ve done. To get forgiveness from the team. From Skye. I know there’s no forgiveness for what I’ve done.

Monsters don’t get forgiveness. Bad guys can be rehabilitated, but monsters…

Well. There’s no second chances for the things that hide under our bed. That torment our nightmares. That twist our words, and break our bones, simply because they can.

But it’s important that they _understand_. I wasn’t born like this. I didn’t ask for this. I never wanted this. I didn't do anything I did because I enjoyed it or because I wanted to.

To be honest… By the time I’d hit six, I’d stopped wanting anything other than safety, and for the pain to stop.

By eight, though, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. And I stopped wanting anything at all. I stopped resisting. Stopped fighting. I’d learned - _was conditioned_ -to realize that it didn’t matter what I did. Fighting back, rolling over, yelling, crying, being silent... None of it mattered. Bad things were going to happen regardless of what I did or didn’t do. With my father, with my brother, and later with Garrett… my feelings on whatever was happening were irrelevant. If it… felt good, if it hurt, if I screamed, if I smiled, if it was agonizing or pleasurable… it didn’t matter. It was immaterial. _I_ was immaterial.

Looking back, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for me if they’d enjoyed my pain. If they’d acted like they hated me. That they were angry or frustrated with me. Given me some sign that I was more than a punching bag, or a doll for them to pass the time with.

Dehumanization. The act of depriving a person of the qualities that make them human. But it’s more than that.

We don’t think about our lamp, sitting on the end table. Or at least, we don’t think about it beyond ‘it matches the drapes’, and ‘oh, I need to change the bulb in that’. They serve a purpose. Oh sure, we might grow sentimental towards a particular lamp, because it’s ours, and we’ve had it for so long. But never anything more than that.

My father treated his purebred Pyrenees with more affection, more dignity, more respect, than he ever treated me with. My brother… I was nothing more than something to amuse him when it pleased him. My mother rarely, if ever, acknowledged my existence, and the few times she did, it ended poorly. I was nothing more than a tool, one of many, in Garrett’s arsenal.

In the process, along the way, I became… something less than human.

I’ll admit, in my teenage years, I was the robot that Skye so often accused me of being. I did what was told, rarely spoke unless asked a direct question… The only time I acted out was when Christian…

Well, let’s just say that he found my breaking point. I wasn’t sure I had one; I don’t think he was either. But I did, and crossing it pushed me to something I didn’t know I was capable of.

I suppose I should be grateful for it though. That moment taught me that there was still something there, inside me. That I was capable of reacting, when pushed to a certain point.

That maybe, there was something of Grant Ward still lurking beneath the blank surface.

Between Garrett, and S.H.I.E.L.D., they gave me enough to hone my behavior into a skilled field Specialist. I obeyed orders from a superior without question, or hesitation, I could put my body through hell and back without a word of complaint, and I was so emotionally compartmentalized that I didn’t need the years of therapy to deal with the job.

All the things that people talk about ‘boiling over’ and ‘bleeding through’, I kept locked up so tight that I’d rarely, if ever, think about them after the moment was over. I could withstand torture well enough that Romanoff herself once commented on well I did.

My flaws might not have made me a good -or even healthy -person, but they made me a damn fine Specialist.

I was able to accomplish any task put before me. I was able to withstand anything needed. To do whatever was deemed necessary. My psych and physical evals always came back top of the charts.

I was a damned gold mine for S.H.I.E.L.D. And even if I didn’t have the capacity to be ‘happy’, I was… content. I served a purpose. I had the respect, and even admiration, of many in S.H.I.E.L.D., from other specialists, to the upper echelons. I rarely thought about Garrett, or the super-secret club Garrett told me I was a part of. Things were… _good_.

And then I got the call. The one that told me to report to the Fridge for reassignment. The one that put me with a team that would shake everything to my core.

A man who was simply good. With no ulterior motives, or drives, other than to do and be good.

Two wide-eye, naïve scientists, who found pure joy and pleasure in the smallest details of our world.

A woman nearly as emotionally stilted as I was, for entirely different reasons.

And a hacker. A girl who took the worst humanity had to throw at her, and came out the other side smiling. Who still believed that people were good, that things could, and would, be better. That she could help the world be a better place.

And I started slipping.

I never regained my balance. And I'm pretty sure it was the fall that did me in.


End file.
